226 Swain
imperial Nicene church. What concerns the present study is the relationship
between Gothic identity and Gothic Christianity and its church. More than
other possible components of that identity, Gothic Arianism has long been
considered a distinctive marker of Gothicness, and one which acted as a barrier
between the Gothic and Roman communities of Italy.131 Though it seems that
Theoderic did not proselytize Gothic Christianity and never interfered with
the practice of Nicene Christians, he was a patron of the Gothic church and
personally identified with its faith. Addressing a group of Nicene bishops, he
spoke of “your religion and ours”.132 And Theoderic supported the construction
of Arian churches in Ravenna.133 With its many properties and royal patron-
age, the Gothic church was a formidable institution, but one ultimately consid-
ered heretical by the overwhelming majority of the Italian Nicene population.
This, it is argued, clearly set Arian Goths apart from their Nicene neighbours,
and the maintenance of this minority sect sustained deep divisions between
Goths and Romans in Italy. Some even argue that the continued practice of
Arian Christianity was a way by which the Goths could underline their separa-
tion from Nicene Romans.
This divide, though, was not clear-cut. There is evidence that some Goths
converted to Nicene Christianity or perhaps had always been Catholics.134 And
one line of argument holds that conversions went the other way as well.135
According to this interpretation of the religious landscape, the Gothic church
cannot be seen as an ethnically Gothic institution or one that stood outside
the rest of the Italo-Roman population. Rather, the Gothic church evidenced
in the 6th-century sources was only the continuation of the Italian Arian
church of the 5th century, which upon the advent of the Arian Theoderic’s
rule in Italy had rebranded itself as the ecclesia Gothica in an effort to secure
the protection and generosity of the Gothic king. A prosopographical col-
lection that includes both Nicene Goths and Italo-Roman Arians shows that
there was nothing inherently ‘Gothic’ or ‘Roman’ about either Arianism or
131 Chadwick, Boethius, p. 3; Burns, History of the Ostrogoths, pp. 159–61; Wolfram, Goths,
pp. 324–6; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 89–97; Heather, Goths, p. 245; Brown, “Role of
Arianism”, p. 423.
132 Anagnosticum regis, ed. T. Mommsen (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores
Antiquissimi 12), Berlin 1894, p. 425.
133 Though Amory, People and Identity, p. 246 has argued, without evidence, that the con-
struction of some of these churches can be traced to the period of Odovacer. See also
Cohen’s and Johnson’s chapters in this volume in which Arianism and Arian churches are
discussed.
134 Procopius, Wars 6.6.18; Moorhead, Theoderic, pp. 95–7 for further examples.
135 Amory, People and Identity, p. 259.